PUBLIC SERVICE APPEALS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2301, 7 November 1914, Page 11

PUBLIC SERVICE APPEALS

REPLY TO CRITICISM.

When the Imprest. Supply Bill was under consideration of the House of Representatives early on Thursday morning one or two , members of the. Opposition indulged in some criticism on the work of the Public Service Appeal Board and its methods of dealing with . appeals made by officers of the Service. The trend of the criticism was that the board had adopted a somewhat arbitrary manner in connection -with appeals from the Post and Telegraph branch of the Service, and that the facilities given to men of the Department to ventilate their grievances had been improperly curtailed by the stand . taken by the hoard. In a return recently presented to the House it showed that the Appeal Board had heard to date 43 appeals from the Post and Telegraph Department, and that the number of appeals disallowed was 187, which, said the members who commented on the matter, indicated that 144 appeals had been dis•missed by the board without the appellants having an opportunity .of- being heard. .'■ . '

A Dominion reporter made inquiries in the matter yesterday, and. in a statement made by the chairman of the Public Service Appeal Board (Mr. Peter Barr) it would &ppear_that in every case where an officer desired to be Heard, even when the application was received at the last moment, every facility had been given for the appellant to appear. "In the Postal and Telegraph Department," Mr. Barr stated, "it is obvious that officers can be more readily dealt with in groups than in the General Service, there being a much smaller variety of offices, and the Department having been classified for many years. Tho board is, however, hearing every appellant where in its judgment it ia necessary to' do so, whether application to be heard is made or not, and only in one or two cases where it was clearly unnecessary has it decided not to hoar those who applied. In this line of action the board, including of course the elective members, has been unanimous. "At the date of the return the number of appeals disallowed appeared largo in relation to the number hcfird, as the board had only heard Wellington appellants, but had gone through the whole of the appeals for the Dominion and settled those that wore obviously governed by the cases heard and decided. All cases outside of Wellington where there had been application for hearing, or where the board desired further information from the appellant or officers of tho Department, were held over for hearing in the different centres. When, therefore, tho work is finished, the proportion of cases heard to those disallowed will bo much greater than indicated in tho figures supplied, which to that extent were quit© misleading."■